First Focus Campaign for Children sent the following letter to House leadership, chairman, and ranking member of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Worker and Family Support to endorse the Supporting Foster Youth and Families through the Pandemic Act (H.R. 7947). We recognized that this bill contains many important solutions to the disconcerting enigma facing children and youth in — or at risk of entering — foster care and their families and also offered several suggestions for improvements that would make the legislation even more effective.
Excerpt from the letter:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, foster youth and their parents, caregivers, and foster parents have faced numerous challenges, including: disruptions in housing for those youth in college, limited visitation with each other, delayed permanency hearings due to limited access to courts, and changes in the delivery of therapies and treatments that were helping them heal, reunite, and exit the child welfare system. Youth in foster care have led the call for Congress to attend to their needs and we are very grateful for the responsive leadership of Chairman Davis and Ranking Member Walorski, which has produced a bipartisan bill that addresses many of the challenges that the pandemic continues to pose to youth in care, their families and their caregivers.